Lessons Learned (Guitar): Take Time to Breathe

 Continuing on with my "lessons learned" comments in regards to songwriting and recording/mixing, I must say that one of the more recent lessons that I've really learned (the hard way, of course) is to, well, not play so much.  I don't mean practice, of course, but I mean don't play constantly when you're playing. In fact, music needs to breathe more often than you'd think, and a quality of a good recording that I never really thought about before was allowing the song to have some space.

This also seems to be a fairly common stumbling block for most musicians, I think.  I know in my last band that this ran rampant between us and, now going through the recording sessions that we did, it's a bit tricky trying to meld everything together because no one ever seems to take a break.  Doing this creates ear fatigue; it also sometimes masks a good performance because you can't actually tell where the good performance is.

For example, when a song starts, don't feel like you have to play at a level of 100%.  Again, I'm not talking about precision or accuracy...I mean don't be strumming or soloing like your life depends upon it.  Instead, work up to it, change it up, and don't be afraid to do simple downward strums as an accent rather than playing each track like a punk rock tune at 180 bpm.  Just like fine wine and cheese need to breathe, I think music does as well.

I've particularly been learning this while working on the new instrumental album, where I'm basically soloing jazz style for quite some time.  I have a terrible tendency to play at 100% right from the start, meaning speed, number of notes, etc.  When I'm doing it, I think it sounds great.  When I play it back later, it sounds like complete garbage because there's just no build-up to anything since I'm already built up from the get go.  It's like a story with no build-up...just an ongoing climax that ends up being anti-climatic since it never actually changes or builds.

You'd think playing less would be easy, right?  It is in technique but trying to get your head around actually doing it for real is much harder than you'd imagine.  It's almost like my brain feels judged by playing too little, and I think that's part of the problem.

So, remember...don't feel ashamed to play an easier riff or simpler strum and instead work up to a more climatic style of playing.  Your recording will thank you later on.

Taking Shape, and Yet Another End of an Era

 Recording has been basically off the table for the past month or so due to health issues as well as working on the artwork for "Mirror Land".  I'm happy to say that the artwork is almost done and I have probably only a few tweaks to make to it in general.  I still have a couple more tasks that I'm trying to do to the mixes so I'm expecting it to be another couple of weeks, depending upon how I'm feeling.  I'm pretty pleased with the artwork so far, though, so that's great, and Photoshop hasn't abused me too terribly in the process.

My health has been rather suspect lately.  The worst part is that I have no idea what's going on with me, and so far the doctors don't either.  I had a brain MRI last week and the results showed everything as normal (which I *think* is good, right?).  It's really hard to counter something when you don't know what you're trying counter.  When the fatigue and headaches come on, though, it's like being hit by a train, and I'm rendered fairly useless until it passes, hence why I'm desperately trying to find out how to make it pass quicker.

In other news, I read something last week that sort of floored me a bit.  I guess Fender announced that the Fender Twin amp, one of the most iconic amps ever, will no longer be made with tubes!  I mean...um...?  Needless to say, I'm pretty skeptical on this point.  I know that supposed tube replication has progressed somewhat but I'm a bit of a purist and still feel, no matter what the technology and such, that the original way of doing it is best...but who knows.  I long ago sold my Fender Twin back around 2005 or 2006, I think, and after going through countless amps, have happily settled on Savage Amps and the more recent newcomer for me, the Benson Vinny, a 1 watt giant that has pretty much blown my mind since getting it.  I've actually recorded the entire new "jazz machine" album using only this amp so far and the results have been very pleasing.  As for the Twin, well, maybe I'll plug into one the next time I'm in a music store.  I must say that I am a bit curious.

Revisiting Photoshop

  It's been quite awhile since I've had to fiddle about in Photoshop.  I think it's been over 16 years, to be fairly precise, and that's more than enough time to completely forget everything about a program, not that I was that good with it to begin with.  I used this weekend to start work at very long last (6+ months overdue) on the cover art for the "Mirror Land" EP and let's just say that it was a bit brutal.

Like I said, I've never been that knowledgeable about Photoshop to begin with but I found trying to use it now a bit more annoying than I recall it being in the past.  I did get a decent start on it, though, and at least I already knew what pictures I was going to use for the front and back cover.  It's usually not the pictures that are the issue, though.  I find combining text onto the sleeves to be the hardest.  90% of the available fonts never look right, at least not to my eyes, and trying to nail down the positioning and such is a royal pain in the you know where.  It's not hard to see why people who are very knowledgeable at these things get highly paid for it.

I also had a chance to start going through some of my old files that I've had stashed in the garage for the past 20 years and it was an interesting walk down memory lane.  I found the "Lost Weekend" artwork which I'll be needing soon due to the re-release, although it's looking like I'll have to start completely over on it due to incorrect resolution and such.  I also found 2 prototype covers for the never released (or finished) "Foreshadowing" album which I barely even remember doing.  There were also quite a few photos that I sort of recall but I have absolutely no memory of where I got them from or who gave them to me.  If I ever end up deciding to use them, I have absolutely no clue who to credit for them.

I had meant to fiddle with mixing drums on the "Mirror Land" EP this weekend but never got around to it.  I figured I should try to polish them up just a bit before I finally lock down the mix.  I've been learning a lot lately about drum mixing, finally getting over my fear of touching them since I'm of course not a drummer, but I rarely have the time to focus on it.  I also learned an amazing new trick in the past couple of days for mixing in general that I had never used nor heard of before...applying EQ to your reverbs.  I must say that it was rather impressive and quickly got written down into my notes for mixing.  It's all a journey, after all.

If anyone out there has an interest in putting together cover art for me, by all means let me know.  Until then, I'm going to keep fiddling.  As for right now, I probably have 2-3 more covers I have to come up with in the next 4 months so I'm going to be rather busy in that department.